


Gold

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 13:52:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1985337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is falling. Loki has more experience with falling than anyone else in Asgard. Out of the apple trees, down the stairs, off the throne. He has never fallen this far before.</p><p>- what happens to Loki after his fall and before his appearance on Midgard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gold

**Author's Note:**

> This is the translation of a short story I wrote in Dutch a while ago. The translation is also mine, so all mistakes are mine. Also, I have no idea what the singular form of 'Aesir' is, so I went and found 'Asa' on Wikipedia. I hope it's not wrong.

The last thing Loki sees before the universe devours him is Frigga. Not Thor, even though he can still feel the warmth of Thor’s hand on his fingers, and not Odin, even though Odin’s voice still echoes in his ears – Frigga. He sees her in the weaving room, slim fingers merging green and gold into one long, fine thread. He sees her on the steps leading to Odin’s throne, majestic in night-blue silk, her caramel-blond hair falling in waves around her familiar face. He sees himself seated on her knee, sometimes shrieking with joy and sometimes marveling at the stories she tells him about the stars and the nine realms. _Frigga. Mother._

Loki howls, but his voice is lost in the whirling darkness of the universe. He is falling. Loki has more experience with falling than anyone else in Asgard. Out of the apple trees, down the stairs, off the throne. He has never fallen this far before. The paths between the planets beckon at him and in between the silence, but he keeps on falling. He falls through star clouds and stardust, grazes a meteorite and feels the stellar winds blow Bifrost’s dust out of his hair.

Then the wormhole’s jaws slam shut around his chest.

***

_‘Thor, it’s madness!’  
His words are in vain. As if Thor would listen to his little brother. He jumps up, shakes his fist at the ceiling and launches into a speech about valor and glory. Thor does what he’s best at: fighting, inspiring brave deeds, partying. His friends’ bright eyes are proof of his success and Loki sits quietly beside a pillar. He watches. That’s what Loki is best at: watching, listening, playing the game. No-one ever thanks him for it, while Thor is cheered at and admired from all sides._

_‘My friends, we’re going to Jotunheim!’ Thor places his hands brotherly on Fandral’s and Volstagg’s shoulders. Loki’s eyes narrow to slits, but it goes unnoticed. Of course nobody asks for his opinion, even though he is as much a prince as Thor, as much an experienced warrior as Thor, undoubtedly a better strategist than Thor. Should they need him to perform his tricks, they know where to find him and how to flatter him, but any other time?_

_“Master of magic” isn’t a title of honor for the Aesir. “Lie-smith” is an insult they dare not utter to his face, but will always whisper when he turns his back. Even “Silvertongue” shows no appreciation. Nothing is worth anything in Asgard unless it’s made of gold.  
Thor is the golden son. Loki isn’t worth anything unless he’s Thor._

***

Gasping for breath, Loki surfaces. His temples are dripping with sweat, it’s pooling in his neck; his raven-black hair sticks to his face. Unrelenting rock is digging into his back. When he opens his mouth again to taste the fresh air, he chokes and for a moment he cannot breathe. It’s a welcome change.

‘Haven’t had enough?’ Sharp nails scratch a mirror. Loki’s body shudders, but his face remains impassive. The voice cannot hurt him, he tells himself. The voice is not responsible for the things he sees, his memory is.

How lucky Loki can lie with the truth.

‘I think our Asa hasn’t had enough.’ A knife on a grinding wheel, a fork dragged across a plate, Hugin and Munin screeching.

Loki’s body convulses and his silver tongue can only mumble. ‘I am not an Asa.’

‘That’s true.’ A spearhead on a golden shield, glass breaking under heavy boots, the shrill pain of a dead child’s mother. The grating voice comes from behind a mask with metal bars. A black hood hides the face; the skin beneath is of a pale, dead grey. Almost soundlessly the shadow moves around Loki, accompanied only by the rustling of his cloak. ‘No Asa. A Jotun. Blue-skin, giant’s child, _monster_. You haven’t had enough.’

The shadow, to Loki simply the Other, raises a crystal jug. Cool green fluid reflects the starlight. Shivers run down Loki’s spine and he trembles in his shackles even before the fluid touches his naked skin, but he cannot avoid the falling drops. Poison-green flowers bloom on his skin and his consciousness is flooded by darkness. Bright light casts dark shadows, as Loki knows. While his body curls and twists and turns to escape the pain, Loki’s mind travels through the shadows of his memories.

***

_A dozen blushing red apples roll away in the grass. Loki is perched on the highest branch of the tree, holding himself steady with one hand on the rough trunk and clasping the other over his mouth. What now? If Idunn finds him here, he’s in trouble. If she doesn’t, he will probably also be in trouble, since everything that goes wrong in Asgard is blamed on him._

_‘Loki? Hey, Loki! Loki!’ A blond head and a red tunic appear under his tree. Thor beams up at him. ‘Upsetting the apple cart again?’_

_‘Don’t be stupid,’ Loki hisses at him. ‘Keep watch while I come down!’_

_‘Why don’t you just jump?’ Thor asks, because as usual he doesn’t understand Loki at all, but he takes a step back anyway and turns around._

_Above him, Loki closes his eyes in concentration. He hasn’t quite finished reading the book on projections and he hasn’t climbed the apple tree to practice them, but if he succeeds, he might not get the blame for once. Imagination is the most important and if Loki has any talents, fantasizing is one of them. He imagines himself sitting on his bed, next to the book on projections his mother has given him; he imagines the soft fabric of his sheets, the scent of the honey candles on the table by the mirror, the wind coming in through the open window._

_It feels so real the excitement speeds up his heart. Has he done it? Has he transported his mind to his room? If he has, all he needs to do is send his body, too. Full of expectations, Loki lets go of the branch._

_Thor bursts out laughing when Loki crashes into the grass. ‘And you had me keep watch? All of Asgard has heard that thump!’_

_His face burning with anger, Loki struggles back to his feet and picks loose leaves out of his hair. With flickering green eyes, he steps away from Thor. ‘If that’s true, Idunn will be here any minute now, so I’d better start running!’_

_‘Boys. What is the meaning of this?’ Too late. It isn’t Idunn – it’s Odin. His father wears his stern face when he looks down at them. ‘Missing apples, I see. Loki? Thor? Can either of you explain what happened here?’_

_The two boys glance at each other, then turn to Odin and say in unison: ‘It was him!’_

_‘What, you liar!’ Thor yells and gives Loki a shove. ‘I wasn’t even there!’_

_‘Loki?’ Odin gives the youngest of the two an inquisitive look. ‘Speak the truth, boy.’_

_Reluctantly, Loki opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Thor punches his arm. ‘We were just joking, Father. I told him I could get to the top and back faster than he could. We didn’t mean for the apples to drop.’_

_‘Is that true?’ Odin’s eyes have not left Loki’s face. ‘In that case, both of you will now come with me. No more betting in someone else’s gardens, understood?’_

_‘Yes, Father,’ they both nod. Loki can barely believe it, he has never been let off this easily before. He wants to run after Thor, maybe even thank his brother, but Odin’s hand on his shoulder holds him back and Thor disappears through the golden gate into the city._

_‘You should be grateful to Thor for helping you today,’ Odin says, his dark eyes piercing Loki’s green ones. ‘I know what truly happened here. It’s for Thor’s sake, not yours, that I will leave it at this.’_

_Then he takes his hand off Loki’s shoulder and strides out of the apple garden. Loki is left by the tree with a cold, hollow feeling in his stomach that, apparently, he should be grateful for._

***

_‘Don’t let them touch you!’ Volstagg’s voice booms across the battlefield. Not a moment later Fandral dances out of reach of an icicle, Sif skewers two Jotun on her spear and Hogun crushes a giant’s cold skull with his mace. A few meters behind him, Thor batters his hammer around with a smile._

_Loki is frozen in place and stares down at his arm, at the Jotun-blue spot slowly spreading on his skin._

***

_‘They must fear me, just as they once feared you, Father!’ Thor exclaims and waves Mjolnir around the Observatory, as if in his mind he is still beating up Jotun. Loki almost chokes on his self-control, on the agonized scream he has to hold back. Listen, watch, play the game. The mantra in his head has saved him from impulsive words before. What would Thor do if he knew what Loki saw?_

_What would Odin do?_

***

_With his chin raised and his hands clenched at his sides, Loki enters the vault beneath the palace. The guards give him a nod and close the door behind him, they’re used to his visits. This time, however, he hasn’t come to study the mysteries of the artefacts the Aesir have brought from every corner of the universe._

_He has come for the truth._

_At the end of the long hallway, a small square chest rests on a pedestal of carved rock. Behind it, a net of woven steel hides the most dangerous relict of all: the Destroyer, the enormous metal servant made by Odin himself. Loki stops at the casket and looks down through the glass lid, hypnotized by the pulsating Jotun-blue core. As soon as he places his hand on the chest and his suspicion proves to be true, the steel net will melt away and the Destroyer will fulfill his purpose. Death comes to every Jotun who tries to lift the casket off its pedestal._

_The truth, Loki thinks. He is the Lie-smith, but if this truth calls for his death, so be it. He reaches out and folds his fingers around the casket’s cold handles._

_‘Stop!’_

_A deep Jotun-blue, just like the chest’s inner light, creeps into Loki’s fingers and up his arms, disappearing into his tunic’s green sleeves. The air around Loki cools noticeably. When he lets go of the chest and turns around, he sees the reflection of his red eyes in Odin’s golden breastplate._

_‘Am I cursed?’ For the first time in years, he has no control over his voice._

_‘No.’ Odin sounds calm._

_‘What am I?’_

_‘You’re my son.’_

_Loki wants to laugh, but he’s afraid to completely lose control if he does. ‘What more than that?’ With every step away from the chest, more warmth returns to his chest, but his heart remains cold. ‘The Casket wasn’t the only thing you took from Jotunheim that day, was it?’_

_For the first time in his life, Loki sees hesitance in Odin’s face. A split second, no more. Then the All-father speaks. ‘No.’_

_Loki freezes. Of course he knew, has suspected it since that moment on Jotunheim, but still Odin’s voice echoes loudly in his ears. His father’s voice – not his father’s, a liar’s voice, the liar who raised him. It is almost enough to make him burst out laughing. Odin, the biggest liar of all, who has chastised him all these years for his tricks and schemes. Hypocrite, Loki thinks, I just did what I was taught, I just did what you taught me._

***

_Loki can’t remember ever seeing Frigga cry. She isn’t crying now, while the healers lower Odin onto his bed. With an impassive face she watches as Eir puts the golden nets in place, the nets that will keep the All-father alive during the Odinsleep. After the healers have gone, Frigga seats herself next to Odin’s head and takes Odin’s hand in hers._

_‘So why did he lie?’ Loki asks. His voice is hard, rigid, with a bitter sound Frigga will not miss, and not just because she has a seer’s gift. All that time Odin didn’t have to spare for him, Frigga has filled with love and dedication._

_‘He kept the truth from you,’ she says quietly, ‘so you would never feel different.’_

_A scornful smile pulls at Loki’s mouth. His father the liar, the hypocrite. If he has ever felt different, it has been because of Odin._

_‘You are our son, Loki,’ Frigga says and looks at him intently. ‘And we your family.’_

_The word cuts through his cold heart like a knife. If Odin isn’t his father, then Thor isn’t his brother, Frigga isn’t his mother. The knife twists deeper into his chest; Loki can feel blood that isn’t there seeping out of the wound. Frigga isn’t his mother. Lies, he thinks, lies – but every Lie-smith recognizes the truth. For the first time since Jotunheim, the cold seeps out of Loki’s body. Warmth, white-hot anger, takes its place._

***

‘ENOUGH!’ Loki screams his memories to pieces. He is still lying bound on the floor, foam on his lips and a twisted back from the pain. The poisonous flowers are fading on his skin, but the Other is still holding the crystal jug.

‘Enough?’ he croaks. ‘I decide when you’ve had enough, Jotun.’

‘Enough,’ Loki pants. ‘Enough.’ His head is close to bursting; if he has to take the poison one more time, he will die. He wonders if anyone would mourn him.

The Other moves around him, his cloak rustling, and stops next to Loki’s head; he holds the jug over Loki’s eyes. ‘Have you seen what you needed to see, Jotun? Have you seen what you are?’

‘No more,’ Loki whispers, ‘than a stolen relic, locked up until someone might have use of me.’

Finally, the Other lowers the jug. At the same time, the shackles loosen around Loki’s ankles and wrists, so he can sit up. His sticky hair falls onto his shoulders, much longer than before he fell. When he raises a hand to wipe the foam off his mouth, he can see blue veins under an almost translucent skin.

The Other shows his teeth behind the metal bars of his mask. A smile, Loki realizes, a more honest smile than Odin’s. ‘You know our price, Jotun. Bring us the Tesseract and you will get what you desire most.’

‘My birthright.’ Loki looks up at the stars in the night sky. ‘A throne.’

‘Take the scepter and Asgard’s throne will be yours.’ The Other’s laugh sounds like a horse screaming in agony. ‘Your family’s throne, Jotun.’

‘I have no family.’ Loki’s shackles fall to the ground and he gets up, stiff and sore now that the poison has robbed him of his agility. ‘Give me the scepter and I will prove it to you.’ Gold, he thinks, a scepter made of gold. Now he will be the one casting shadows.

The last thing Loki sees before he takes the scepter is Frigga.


End file.
